


Blood and Blade

by Tennine



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: An Uncomfortable Amount Of Demon Blood, Devil Arm Weirdness, Mild body horror (Devil Sword Sparda related), Sickfic? Perhaps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28097016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tennine/pseuds/Tennine
Summary: Dante knows better than anyone that devil arms tend to have their quirks. His dad's old blade might just take the cake.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	1. Too Early For This Shit

Dante rolled over in his disheveled bed, sudden discomfort gripping him like a panther digging its claws into the middle of his back. He shuddered and curled in on himself slightly as the most bizarre urge hit him- fight something, now, go out, find something to kill, wet your blade with blood. 

He turned over again and tried to ignore the creeping fire in his veins until he couldn’t handle it anymore and his trigger crept over him, scales forming along the back of his neck and his cheeks. He sat up, roared, and summoned the Devil Sword Dante. The restless energy pulled out of him just as quickly as it had forced its way in. The blade, however, remained in his hand, glowing brighter and brighter until a burst of light blinded him and then calmed, the tiny trickle of light from the blackout curtains the only glow in the room. Devil Sword Dante demanifested, leaving something in its wake- a curved blade with a spinal column for a- well, spine, blanched meat and connective tissue tying the components together and large gems sparkling along the connection, embedded in the sickly flesh. The largest red gem was conspicuously missing, a miserable looking hole in its prior place. Even the leather wrapping on the hilt looked worn and the skull pommel tarnished.

Dante let out the breath he had been holding. “Son of a bitch. Thought you were gone.”

\-----

“So, like, have you ever had to feed it?”

“Excuse me?” Trish’s voice pitched up slightly at the end of the question, incredulous.

“Have you ever, you know, had to feed The Sparda? It’s a simple question.” Dante turned the hilt of the sickly-looking sword in his hand, the point on the floor acting as a pivot. 

“Would you mind explaining WHY you are asking me this at seven in the morning? Didn’t you absorb it anyway?” 

“I guess it decided it was done with being part of Devil Sword Dante and just sorta… made him cough it up?” 

“It what?” 

“Long story, no, I do not know either. Look, it looks sick. Like, pale pink and the fleshy parts are all thin.” 

Trish sighs, the sound of the phone shifting on the other end not offering Dante a lot of hope. After a few moments, she responded. “I mean… maybe? Maybe it absorbs blood from jobs.”

“Trish, I owe you.”

“Yes, you do. Never call me before two PM again.” A click on the other end. 

Dante set the handset back on the receiver and sighed, considering the blade. “Man, looks like you’re gonna lose a gem.” He poked at one of the loosened red stones studding the side and yelped, nearly falling out of the chair as the flesh holding it in place writhed uncomfortably. “Oh, I HATE that. Uh… We’ll figure this out.”


	2. Spa Day

“Dante, you’ve done a lot of weird shit in the time I’ve known you. A LOT. But this, this really blows it all out of the water.” Lady let her hand fall from its position pinching the bridge of her nose and shook her head. 

“Bullshit, I’m crazier than this and you know it.” Dante had, in his nowhere near infinite but still very broad and bizarre assortment of wisdom, managed to get his hands on an industrial barrel and filled the entire damn thing with demon blood, the hilt and a bit of the blade of the Devil Sword Sparda peeking up over the lip. 

“It reeks in here, why didn’t you rent a storage unit or something?” She crossed her arms over her chest. 

He snorted. “Uh, because a scent of blood THIS strong is gonna get the cops called and a big meat sword confiscated and me probably thrown in prison. Again.”

“He does have a point, even humans would pick up on this from the outside of a storage unit.” Trish didn’t seem nearly as bothered, dipping a finger into the blood and sniffing at it. “What did you take down for this?” 

“Big-ish nest of hellbats about a mile into the woods next state over. It’s a damn good thing it’s been a shitty, rainy few weeks because otherwise the fire department woulda had a tragedy on their hands.” Dante leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. 

“Vergil’s going to throw a fit over this…” Lady muttered. 

“Sorry, you think Vergil of all people is gonna throw a fit over a barrel of blood? There’s barely even any on the floor!” Dante gestured around to the few little spots of red already soaked irreparably into the old wood flooring. 

“He’s Vergil. He’ll gladly take any reason to stab you.” Trish sat on the edge of the desk, smirking. 

“That’s not ‘throwing a fit’, that’s family bonding!” Dante grinned, shrugging a little. 

“Touche. How long has it been in there?” She wiped the blood from her finger and poked at the pommel, the blood rippling around the hilt and exposed bit of blade.

“Eh, about six hours?” He waved his hand noncommittally. “You know I don’t own anything that tells time.” 

“I mean, shouldn’t you check on it?” Trish raised an eyebrow at him. 

“It’s a sword, it’s MADE to be soaked in blood.” 

She tilted her head toward him a little, the eyebrow not moving. 

“Ugh, fine. But it’s gonna be fine, you’ll see-” He gripped the hilt awkwardly, trying to get a stable hold on it without soaking his hand in blood as well, and pulled it up. “Oh, shit.” The flesh had crept beyond the guard, far thicker than before. “Jeez, this thing got heavier. What the hell?”

Trish’s brow furrowed and her jaw dropped just a little. “That… That hasn’t happened before.” 

“You sure? This seems pretty normal. Like, something I might put on the dartboard if I wanted to try my hand at projectile prophecy.” He kept pulling, something snagging once the blade was about a foot out of the bloodbath. “Uh, it’s stuck.”

Lady went wide-eyed. “Stuck? You’re pulling it straight up out of the middle of the barrel!” 

“Yeah, I know that. I’m the guy doing it, actually.” Dante quipped. 

Trish looked over the blade. “Something’s happened. I’ve never actually soaked it in blood before, maybe that’s done something to it?” 

“I mean, nothing else has happened to it today, so best guess is it’s the big barrel of demon blood.” Dante shrugged. “Now are you two gonna help me or am I losing a battle of wills with a sword because this amount of blood spilling is DEFINITELY gonna get this building condemned?” 

The girls looked at each other. 

“The latter, because that’s WAY funnier. I mean, yeah, it’s a sword made of meat and bones, but it was your dad’s, so how evil can it be?” Lady grinned. 

Dante sighed, shoulders falling. “Why. Why would you ever say that? You know what’s gonna happen now? It’s gonna eat someone. Because you doubted it. You jinxed it, great job.” 

“It’ll be fine. It doesn’t feel hostile,” Trish said. 

“Fine.” He let go of the hilt and the blade sank back down far too slowly. “That’s weird. This whole thing is weird.”

Lady chuckled. “Good news, idiot, weird is your wheelhouse.”


	3. Claws and (Not Quite) Teeth

Dante had elected to just let the sword do whatever the hell it wanted, because he couldn’t afford the cleanup of trying to free it from the barrel. So he waited.   
  
A little over a day and a half later, he worked up the courage to approach the damn thing, some sort of tendril of meat having grown up from the hilt, covering it and the pommel entirely. 

He dodged out of the way on instinct when some part of it twitched toward him, air hissing between his teeth. “Can you PLEASE not do that?” 

The flesh flinched back like it had been burned. 

Dante made a face. “Do NOT tell me you can hear me now. This is already so goddamn weird.” 

The tendril sank down almost dejectedly. 

Dante eyed it warily as he leaned over the barrel again, looking in. The inside was as pristine as it had been when he acquired it, which still wasn’t saying much. “Oh, holy shit. All of it? All of it. Well, that’s a lot of cleanup I don’t have to do.” He sighed, stepping back, running a hand through his hair. “What the hell is happening to you? What’s your deal? You gonna fight me again if I pull you outta there?” 

The tendril waved back and forth in a ‘negative’ gesture.

“Well, that’s… good. I guess. Uh.” He hesitated, trying to figure out where the hilt should be. “Please don’t grab me because I WILL scream.” He reached in, grabbed the weird mass of flesh, and quickly heaved the sword up, laying it on the floor for a closer look. 

Where the flesh had always been on the blade there was now a chitinous limb, taloned fingers curling and twitching and extending nearly to the tip of the actual blade. The fleshy tendril extended from what was most certainly supposed to be the beginnings of a shoulder.

“Okay, cool, so this is what’s up. I’m gonna- I’m gonna go find the biggest, evilest looking tome I own and see if there’s anything on whatever the hell this is.” 

\------

Dante may have lost track of the time. 

“DANTE! WHAT IS THIS?” Vergil sounded actually surprised, which wasn’t a common occurrence considering he had a pretty good grip on his voice even when he WAS taken aback.

Dante stepped out of the tiny kitchen, big, evil-looking tome in hand. “I was kind of hoping you would have an idea, honestly.”

“Is this father’s blade?” Vergil toed at the arm a little, jolting when the hand curled into a fist. 

“It sure is!” Dante grinned. “Like it? I renovated it a bit-”

“Did you attempt a demonic resurrection?” Vergil studied Dante’s face as he spoke, seemingly satisfied with the shock he found there as an answer.

“A what? Wait, is that-”

“Devil arms can be turned into artificial demons if their intellect has not been retained or used to resurrect a demon if it has. The arm simply needs a proper base material to reform a body.”

“That’s how Urizen-” 

“Yes.”

“... You’re implying that the sword _might_ be dad. Sort of.” 

“Yes.”

Dante sat down in his desk chair, burying his face in his hands. “Holy shit.” 

Vergil sighed, eyeing the blade. “This is… unexpected. Have you sensed any consciousness from it?”

“Yeah, it answers yes or no questions and I can hurt its feelings apparently.”

Vergil looked back up at him. “You are joking.”

“Oh, no, I’m not this time.” 

“How did you discover this?” Vergil tilted his head a little. 

“It reached for me and I was like ‘Don’t touch me this is SUPER weird’ and it did a sad little… wilt-y... thing at me then made a ‘no’ gesture when I asked if it was gonna resist me pulling it out of the barrel again.”

“Barr- what was in the barrel?” Vergil looked into it, brow furrowed. 

“As much hellbat blood as I could fit in there with the sword and not spill all over the damn place.”

“You bathed the Devil Sword Sparda in demon blood without doing any prior research?”

“It- He looked sick!” Dante gestured to the blade. “What the hell was I supposed to do?” 

Vergil pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ask literally anyone-”

“I asked Trish and Lady.”

“-With half a brain.” 

Dante snorted. “They’re smarter than you.”

“But I know significantly more about demons than either of them.”

“You were out! The sword was sick!” More slightly flailing gestures. “Look, he got better! Sort of!”   
  


The shoulder wriggled in an affirmative gesture, and the hand gave a thumbs-up. 

“See? It’s FINE.” 

Vergil growled a little in irritation. “This time, yes. Do not EVER do something this stupid again without consulting me.”

Dante smirked. “What, so you can make it even stupider?” 

Vergil tightened his grip on the Yamato’s saya, gritting his teeth with the effort of resisting the urge to jam it into Dante’s rib cage. 


End file.
